Kenji
by ObsidianWolf001
Summary: Uta's back is against a wall when Kaneki gets hurt in a fight a little severely, and then a mystery gang of biker ghouls appears. But doesn't that voice sound familiar under the full head helmet? Written because I don't like fem!Uta cosplayers, but I love them at the same time. So, for the last day of Utakane Week, I will begin my first chaptered fic. M because of future content
1. Chapter 1

Uta had almost forgotten the feeling of putting his fist through a human body, even in his own ward, but now he was swinging through the button up shirt on the investigator that had taken a swing with his quinque and opened Kaneki up. What had they been doing that resulted in this? They were just walking down the street. Uta's glasses had slipped, and the cases had come open in the three inspectors hands.

Uta was backed into a corner, protecting Kaneki while his body worked hard to heal. He was bleeding heavily, and his eyes were closed. They had knocked him unconscious first, and Uta had gone batshit. He'd heard of what people said about when ghoul's mates were in danger, or hurt like this. They went crazy to protect their mates. Having Kaneki bloody and down on the floor behind him had his eyes going flat black and he could only reason one thing.

These fuckers were going to die.

Uta snarled, crouched over his lover. "You're all going to die, you fucks." He snapped.

The inspectors had called for back up. They're buddies rolled up as the sentence came out of Uta's mouth. They were on his hitlist too. He snapped his fist out and ducked an attack just as fast as they hit the button on their little toys, and was back before Kaneki as they hit the ground. Their hearts in either fist. The four left standing all stared at him, almost in shock.

"Did they really send some newbies into the fourth ward to run headfirst into No Face's mate?" Uta laughed raucously. "Who's next?"

Just as deliberately, he kneeled on one knee and offered the heart to Kaneki as he woke. "Eat this. You'll need it, Eyepatch." He mentioned. They wouldn't have an identity on Kaneki. Since he'd gone missing he looked much different. They would only know his ghoul name. Uta wasn't giving them anything else. They wouldn't get anything on either of them after this. They wouldn't be getting up.

Kaneki hissed, leaning against the wall, and just as fast, a quinque snapped out and wrapped Kaneki's leg. Kaneki screamed when the inspector yanked back on it, and Uta watched Kaneki's kagune hold him in that space while the inspector took his leg off. Uta was ready to finish them, but before the stolen kagune could return to it's captor, there was a roar of a motorcycle engine. In almost the same second Uta turned, the motorcycle at the mouth of the alley was joined by six more behind it, blocking escape there, and Uta wondered when the CCG had gotten a motorcycle unit before a gun was pulled.

The CCG wasn't that stupid. Well, most of the time. The bullheaded charge on Aogiri had been a mistake for them, but this was no reinforcements for the CCG there. The other six behind the lead man, wearing the visor of the helmet down over their face just aiming the .22 at the inspectors, unleashed kagune. Two wicked ukaku at the back, three rinkaku in different forms, and a bikaku gleamed, ready to fuck the inspectors up. "Feeling lucky?" A vaguely familiar voice muffled by the helmet called.

Kaneki pushed himself to standing again, and Uta noted that he had at least taken the heart like was demanded. He glared at the inspectors, his human eye hidden by the fringe of white hair that dangled in his face. His own rinkaku twitched for a fight, but he was in no condition for a fight. The inspectors did a very foolish thing, they turned to face back to back.

Those were bad odds for these guys. Kaneki crouched for a launch, but the inspector facing the gunman snapped the long, clawlike quinque at the bikes, and he used his rinkaku to catch the damn thing and sling him headlong into the wall with it. An inspector facing Kaneki used that distraction to make his move, but then his brains were splattered on Kaneki's torn clothes. The gun toter had popped one shot off, engine still snarling on her bike.

"What about you two? How's your health plan?" The leader called.

They moved at an angle back to back, looking the certain death in the eye. The one facing Uta swung the quinque, and aimed again at Kaneki when he did. Uta blocked the thing and slammed his fist through the CCG agent's chest like he had done to the first. These guys were wet behind the ears, or the strength of a crazy ghoul was more than he had ever thought, but they were like paper people either way. At the same exact time as he ripped the other heart out, the gun rang again, and the engine died on the motorcycles. Uta looked down at them, squeezing the heart in his hand, feeling it turn mushy in his hands.

Kaneki was leaning heavily on his rinkaku. Uta put himself in front of Kaneki and faced off with the bikers. The leader was already dismounted, removing their helmet to reveal a hair cut just like Uta's only much longer, dark and wavy layered silk that tumbled down what was very clearly a woman now that she was standing until it looked like it tickled her thighs when she walked. She holstered the piece and Uta watched the other ghoul women behind her put away the kagune. She shoved one body with her foot.

"Can't say I missed these sons of bitches." She said, looking back up at Uta. "How have you been, little brother?"

Kaneki leaned against Uta's body, still breathing heavily. "Are you okay?" Kaneki asked, voice rough.

Uta wrapped his arm around Kaneki's waist, holding him up. "I will be when you're okay." He said quickly. "Who are you?"

She pouted, her lower lip sticking out in an oddly familiar pout. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you don't recognize me?" She reached up and curled her long, sharp nails into the skin there in her face and pull until it came loose. The prosthetic face came off in her hands, and then she was pulling contacts out of her eyes, revealing active kakugan like Uta's. "Your own sister?"


	2. Chapter 2

_**December 2, first day of life**_

It was cold. And it was bright. The place he'd been ejected to smelled like ice and frozen dead things. He wasn't sure where he was, who he was, or the people around him, but he felt the others hand slip from his, and then the other started crying.

"She's healthy." Someone said. "That's good. She's very strong. And a full head of hair."

"But her kakugan. They aren't supposed to display until after the first month, right?" A woman answered.

"It's rare, but it happens. Look, her brother has it too." Something warm touched his eyes, something that smelled similar to him, but more aged, and then they were coming open, and he was looking up into bright light. He started crying, trying to display his displeasure with the little touch. He kicked and shook his tiny fists, and was finally released by the gentle hands on his eyes. The cradle he was in was soft and yielding, pulling him close to a warm, sweaty body. "He's healthy too."

A previously quiet, male voice spoke up. "What will we name them, love?" His voice shook with some type of emotion, but the newest male to the world was focused on the crying other. Why wasn't someone helping her? Why was she still crying? Where was she? He started crying again, only to be bounced gently to a soft rhythm, and soothed. He let the crying continue, reaching out for the other to try to find her. His other half was missing. Where was she?

The woman continued to speak, ignoring the cries. What was wrong with her? Why wouldn't she understand? Could she understand that the other half of him was scared, that she needed help? Maybe she couldn't. Maybe they weren't able to understand that the two of them had this bond, that they could communicate before communication was a word they could know.

"I want to call the girl Kenji. Her name is Kenji." She said softly, still trying to lull the little boy in her arms into silence. "And the boy...I want to name our son Uta."

Uta, now given a title on this earth, reached out, trying to cling to Kenji. Where was she? Why wouldn't she touch his hand? Where had they taken her? She was still nearby, still wailing, but no one would bring her near.

Then there was a screech, different from the rest. A wail Uta responded to on a physical level, his kagune forming to try to defend his sister. Where was she? He had to protect her. There was a meaty thud, and then more crying. The room went quiet, all but the crying of the children. The words that changed his life were uttered then.

"Keep her away from Uta."

 _ **####################################################################**_

 _ **4 Years Old**_

Uta had only ever listened to his parents strongly on one thing. He was told ever since he could walk to stay away from the rolling doors that seperated the guest house from the main house. He was never told why, but he was told that he was not allowed to go there. His other three siblings all obeyed this order religiously, even staying away from Uta's room which was close to that side of the house. He didn't mind. His other three brothers were too... normal. They hid their eyes, laughed at Uta for not doing the same. They wore light colors and listened to the same music as Mom and Dad did, and loved blending with humans.

Uta loved his kagune too much. His parents let him leave it out in his bedroom, so he hardly ever left his bedroom. He loved to explore and run around the property late at night when Mom and Dad and his brothers were in bed, and he especially loved pretending to swoop down on unsuspecting people.

But today, he was too curious. He'd gotten all the amusement out of this place as he could. He'd tried everything, but nothing would make the main house any more fun. The same pale walls and well lit rooms had gotten boring, tedious, and Uta needed to be amused. He got bad when he wasn't.

He stood staring at the forbidden doors, wondering what could lay behind them. He was patient. Patience made the curiousity better when it was sated. He thought carefully. Maybe it was a food store. His parents didn't hunt, but Uta wanted to hunt. He wanted them to take him to hunt down some lone prey, but they always said the same thing. "Our ward is too safe. If we hunt here, we'll be caught." Any suggestion of going to a more dangerous ward was met with a scary look and a warning of reprimand. Uta hated reprimands. He was stronger than his parents thought, and he let them get away with their reprimand one time. It had been a long time, but it had happened. He looked down at his black fingernails in reminder. He had to be smart when exploring, otherwise the amusement was useless, because it would cost him.

He waited for a moment longer, letting other suggestions roll through his head, before he opened the door as stoically as he did everything else. Inside, where he had expected in his most realistic fantasies to see dust and a few broken windows, maybe white sheets over furniture, he saw the exact opposite. He enterred a perfectly kept entryway, just outside of the entryway to the main house, with a little wooden box for shoes and a coat rack beside that. It was warm and the lamp on the wall in place of a light fixture burned dim, like he liked it. There were more along that hallway, and he followed them around.

The guest house was spacious, and kept meticulously clean. The floors were swept and polished, the mirrors on the wall perfectly clean and hanging straight. He explored and saw that the kitchen was the same meticulous clean, though it seemed like it was never used. The three bedrooms were the first bit of personality he saw all throughout the house. Only one had anything of personality in it, a bookshelf stacked high with new books, some from horror authors, others romance, others nonfiction and old fiction novels that Uta had never seen before. He couldn't read the titles just right, but some of them he had heard around before, and even recognized from his oldest brothers shelf. The walls were mostly bare, but there were shadowboxes everywhere, with different species of flora and fauna in them all around. One shadowbox held butterflies, the other ladybugs and lady beetles, some stinkbugs, and even spiders. There were flowers of every shape and size, pressed and framed in big picture frames like collages. Everywhere there were rocks with wooden planks over them strapped shut, and Uta was curious as to what was in them.

Instead of trying to pry them open, however, he kept moving. There was a living room, and then a library. And the library was what shocked him most.

There, sitting in a big comfy chair holding one of those books, was a little girl, with long blonde hair to her waist. She looked to be about his age, and her eyes were kakugan black and red as well. She had a gentle, stoic look on her face, the face that looked exactly like Uta's. Uta blinked, just staring at her, and when he stopped moving almost soundlessly, only a floorboard creaking to give him away, she looked up at him.

It was like looking directly into a mirror. Uta tilted his head, and she did the same thing, even tilting it the same way. She closed her book and put it down on the table beside her, then stood. "Who are you? What are you doing in my house?"

She didn't sound scared. She just sounded curious.

Uta squared his shoulders. "This is my house. This is my guest house. I live here. What are you doing here? Who are you?" He asked.

She didn't seem intimidated, and rather than make him angry, that made him feel better. He felt whole, where he hadn't for as long as he could remember. "I'm Kenji. I've always lived here. I guess I could go if you don't like me here." She said.

Uta shook his head. "No. You can stay. Why don't you ever come out of this part of the house?" He said.

"I was always told to stay here. There used to be another lady who lived here with me, but she left a couple weeks ago and didn't come back." She said.

Uta brow scrunched up. "That doesn't sound very nice. Didn't she even say goodbye?" He asked.

Kenji shook her head, tilting it to the side. "Do you want to come sit with me?" She asked. "My chair is big enough. We'll both fit."

Uta shrugged, jogging over to sit with the little girl. She seemed to notice his hair for the first time. "Your hair is the same color as my hair!" She announced, holding up the overlong strands to his so he could see that hers matched the ones that hung in his face.

Uta nodded. "I like yours. Yours is really long. I want mine long, but they won't let me keep mine that way." He suggested, sitting beside her.

Her brow came together. "What are parents? I've never had any. What are they like?" She asked.

"You have to have parents. If you didn't have parents you wouldn't be here. It isn't nice to lie." Uta explained.

She seemed ashamed. "I'm not lying." She snapped. "I don't have any parents. I just wanted to know what they were like."

Uta's brow came together. "But you have to have parents. Who takes care of you?" He asked.

"I do." She said. "It isn't that hard. I just have to keep this place clean."

"But how do you get food? Do you hunt?" He asked excitedly.

She blinked. "Why would I hunt? I have food in the kitchen. The refrigerator is always full." She said, jumping off the chair. "Come on, I'll show you."

The fridge was indeed stocked with little brown paper packages that, when unwrapped, revealed food. They ate and talked alot and when Uta left, he determined to come back everyday and learn more about this girl, even the weird holes in her hands that she let Uta touch. After a few weeks, he ran excitedly to his parents, the day he learned she was born on the same day he was.

"Uta, we've told you again and again not to run in the house." His mother said sternly.

"Did you know that there's a little girl here? She lives in the guest house and she's really nice and she doesn't even know what parents are, but she was born on the same day as me!" Uta crowed.

Both parents whirled around and stared directly at Uta, his father putting down the book he'd be reading. His mother knelt down in his face. "You weren't supposed to go anywhere near your sister!" She barked.

Uta blinked while his mother recieved a reprimanding word from his father. "My sister?" He asked, shaking his way out of her arms. "I have a sister?"

His mother stood up, running her fingers through her hair. "Listen to me, Uta. You are _not_ to go back over there, do you hear me? You are not to go see your sister again. She killed a man the very day she was born." She answered.

"Why didn't you tell me I had a sister?" Uta shouted. "She's not mean! She wouldn't do that!"

"But she did! Those damned things in her hands put a hole in the man who delivered the two of you a whole foot wide. She was trying to protect you or something, like the freak she is, and she could have killed you too! She could kill you!" His mother yelled.

"The holes in her hands are harmless! I've touched Kenji's hands! I held her hand when she showed me her butterflies. She didn't hurt me!" Uta howled.

She slapped Uta, and when he turned to glare at her, she stepped back. "You are not to go back over there." She breathed.

Uta ran from the room. For almost a week, he was under high watch. His father watched him during the day time, and his mother patrolled at night. He waited patiently until they stopped watching him, thinking he was not going to fight him. In the late of the night, he snuck back over to Kenji and found her asleep in the bedroll on the floor. She was quiet, her face seemingly restful though her eyes were spilling bloodred tears on the pillow. Uta crouched by the head of her pillow, crying as well. How was his sister a monster for something she couldn't control? They were ghouls, weren't they? Humans and ghouls were predator and prey. Ghouls were natural predators. They killed their own for territory and killed humans for food.

"You came back." Kenji mumbled, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

Uta looked up at her. "Did you know you were my sister?" He asked.

"What's that?" Kenji asked quietly.

Uta's brows pulled together. "A sister? It's a person who was born and they were a girl and they had a boy as a sibling." He answered.

Kenji thought about it for a minute, then looked back up at him. "Are you crying?" She asked.

He scrubbed his eyes. "No." He lied. "You were my sister this whole time and I didn't even know you were here. I thought you were just living here. They're so mean talking about you."

Kenji reached out and took his hand. Uta turned her hands up to look at them, at the odd pit in her palm before he pressed his fingers inside. The pit felt familiar, and he felt soft, tiny grooves on the inside that felt like his fingers belonged there. She closed her eyes and leaned onto Uta's shouder.

"Will you go again after this?" She asked.

Uta thought, then pulled her closer. "No. Mom and Dad have stopped watching me. Start sleeping during the day, I'll come at night and we'll play then." Uta promised.

She nodded, smiling. "Okay. Can we always be sisters?" She asked.

Uta knew he wasn't her sister, but he decided then that he didn't care and he would definitely stick by her side and protect her. He nodded, hugging her where she was on his shoulder. "Forever sisters."

 _ **###############################################################**_

 _ **8 Years Old**_

Uta felt two emotions as he tore his oldest brothers heart out of the fucker's chest. Rage. It burned in every cell of his body and fueled the heaviest punch he'd dealt to date. Sure, he'd done damage before, but his family didn't know that. His oldest brother still thought that Uta was weak and hadn't been tested. He thought that his follower status in one ghoul gang made Uta afraid. It had made the brother feel safe enough to tell Uta that he would sneak in one night and kill Kenji.

The other was apathy. He was sure that when the body of a murdered family member dropped in front of an eight-year-old, even when that murdered family member was murdered in an angry flurry by the eight-year-old in question, most would cry, or scream, or be frightened. Uta felt nothing. He merely watched his body hit the floor in the hallway outside his room, and when his parents came around the corner, he merely watched them cry, and scream in pain and sadness. He stood there, brushing off the oversized black jacket that hung off one shoulder that Kenji had given to him the day before, and when his mother looked up at him, he dropped his brothers heart to the floor, staring back at her.

"You're just as much a monster as she is!" His mother sobbed. "You're just like her!"

Uta still felt nothing. He watched his family sob around the dead body staining the floor with blood, and realized that they were less his family than the humans outside were. He realized there was only one family member he had that he could ever love and trust and care for like they did for the dead boy. Kenji.

He was moved to the guest house to live with Kenji then. He stood there and watched the doors close that day, when Kenji was still asleep. He waited until the door rolled shut, and then he nailed it that way, so no one could act on the threat his now dead sibling had made. So they couldn't come over this way again if they tried.

 _ **###########################################################**_

 _ **15 Years Old**_

Uta let Kenji work on busting out a new prosthetic mask while he went to go and check the refrigerator. It had gotten low again. He glanced over his shoulder at Kenji. She had grown a lot like he had, only where he had grown handsome, she had grown beautiful. He was thin, but muscular, and coming out of the awkward, wiry phase, and she was curvy and growing more womanly every day. Her hair was soft and long, and she let him brush it out when she wasn't planning on playing with the polyfoam and plaster that day. She was intelligent, and kind, but she was sheltered. She hadn't known there was a difference between humans and ghouls until Uta had explained the CCG to her.

So when the refrigerator had stopped filling up, she had assumed it broken. Uta had been forced to go into another ward and hunt humans like he'd always wanted to. It had been thrilling, but terrifying. He'd never left Kenji alone unless it was late and he was sneaking out to see his small gang, the people he'd decided to call the Clowns. The friends he had that understood his insanity and determination to protect his sister.

Kenji glanced up from her music and her mold. "Uta, what's wrong? Is it broken again?" She asked.

He shook his head, turning to look at the dwindling supply. "No, no, it's just being slow." He called over his shoulder. "Be careful breaking that thing open. You cracked the last one and it took forever to fix. Alright? I'm going to grab something out of the main house, okay?"

Kenji nodded, and smiled. "Be careful sis." She smirked when he shook his head, rolling his eyes, and then put her headphones on.

Uta turned around and moved to the rolling doors. He opened the doors after removing the nails and crept out. The whole thing was empty. There was no furniture, no people, and nothing else around the place. Uta was confused. Where had they gone? He walked past the entryway again, and there was a slip of paper on the floor he'd walked past. It was dated two years earlier.

 _We left. We won't be coming back._

Uta crumbled the paper in his hand, glancing back into the guest house before dropping it in the trash. Kenji didn't need to know. She was content where she'd always been. He wouldn't pull her out of there now. He nailed the door shut again, and went out to refill the fridge before telling Kenji he'd 'fixed it'.

One less danger to his sister.

 _ **###################################################################**_

 _ **18 Years Old**_

No less than three days after they celebrated their eighteenth birthday, a slamming door and child's laughter woke Uta. He jogged to Kenji's room to make sure she was asleep still before he jogged to the nailed doors, peeping out of a peephole he'd carved to see intruders.

There were five. Two girls, one maybe thirteen and the other maybe four, and one boy, who looked around fifteen. The parents were right behind, looking the stereotypical suburban family that showed in every TV program that Uta had never focused on heavily like his family did. They nattered excitedly on what they called 'their new home,' and then the father tried to pull the nailed doors open.

Uta fell back onto his butt on the floor, glancing over his shoulder back to where Kenji was, and then ran for her room. He jostled her awake, meeting her roused face with near panic. She rubbed sleep out of her eyes, looking at him confused.

"Uta? What's going on? It's really late, or really early depending. What's the matter?" She noted his disheveled state, and got worried. "You're breathing heavily. Is something wrong? Are you sick?"

He shook his head, listening with half an ear for the creaking door trying to break loose. "We have to run." He suggested.

She blinked, rubbing hair out of her face. "What do you mean? What's going on?" She stood when Uta pulled the covers away from her, yanking her to her feet.

"We have to leave. Someone's here, and they're trying to come in this are, and we have to go!" Uta cried, pushing her for the door.

He heard the nails splinter free of the wood, and pulled her faster, pushing her straight toward the back door. He saw the father peering in through the wood as he and Kenji ran through the hall to the door, and heard him cry after Uta to stop, but he pushed Kenji out the door, into the tree line just outside the house. "Run Kenji!" He cried, pushing her one way.

She stopped, reaching back for his hand, and he didn't take it. "What about you?" She asked.

"Just run! I'll find you! Go, and keep your kagune inside of you. Don't let it out in public!" He cried, shoving her again and running the other way when he saw her run, leading the human male after him before losing him. He doubled back and picked up on Kenji's scent.

And then the clouds started rolling in, and thunder started in his heart. No. He couldn't lose her! She didn't know the world the way he did. He needed to catch up to her, and protect her. They were sisters damn it! He couldn't lose her! She had never even seen live trees. Did she grab the mask he'd made her on her way out? What if she ran into an inspector? He'd barely gotten the prosthetic she'd made for him in his fingers before the father had spotted them. She needed to protect herself somehow. She was...

Totally defenseless.

The rain started.

Uta lost the scent.

Kenji was gone.

 _ **###################################################################**_

For the next few years, Uta had slowly lost the emotion for the world. He began to hate everyone with a burning rage, inspectors and fools even more so. What if one of them had hurt Kenji? Every face he passed became, 'that man hurt my sister', 'that child got my sister hurt', 'that woman killed my sister.' Then slowly, everyone was the one who had killed his sister. Because with as long as it had been without her coming to the place he knew she knew where he hid out, she had to be dead. He would see the kagune he'd grown to realize was half of his own held in some inspectors hand, or smell her blood on a ghoul's shirt, and he would finally have closure for the sister he'd only had for ten years when he should have had them all.

Kenji never surfaced. He waited, and changed his hair, his body, his everything, just so he could stop seeing her in the mirror staring back at him, grew cruel. Grew hateful. He grew to look perfectly calm when inside he was always angry. He lost all love for anyone or anything other than his amusement, because that was all he had left in this world. He started to play Kaneki, and then truly met him, and it rekindled that love. He determined himself to take better care of Kaneki then he had of Kenji, not to lose Kaneki running. He wouldn't run. He would fight. He would die for this man, the way he should have done for his sister. He would keep him safe.

So when she showed up to save his bacon in an alley in the fourth ward, surrounded by six biker ghouls and a teenage girl, he was more than a little shocked and confused.

Kenji blinked, snapping her fingers in Uta's face, waving at him as she had for the fifth time since he'd gotten Kaneki back to the loft above the shop, and settled her face down into his. "Kaneki, is he prone to fits of nonresponsiveness?" She asked.

Kaneki leaned on his shoulder, now a little less critical even though the occasional blood drip got past his tight hold on his ribs. "Every now and again he talks." He said sideways, still a little mistrusting of the now black-haired Kenji, sitting across from them. "Uta, are you alright?"

Uta blinked hard, rubbing his eyes for what felt like the thirtieth time. He turned away from the woman across from him who still looked so much like him, even with the long black hair in the same style and a tribal style sun tattoo peeking out over her shoulder on her breast, to look at Kaneki again. "I'm fine. I just am having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that my sister is on the couch across from me." He answered.

Kaneki nodded, wincing at the wound on his neck, which was still bleeding. That jumpstarted Uta into his right mind again, realizing that Kaneki was still bleedng. "Jesus. I wasn't even..." He realized his hands were still covered in blood. "Did you walk back or did I have the decent sense to carry you back?" He wiped them off on his pants and gently pried Kaneki's fingers back from the wound.

Kaneki grit his teeth. "I'm fine. It's just healing slowly." He told Uta.

Uta rolled his eyes. "Which means my common sense went out the window with the rest of my fucking brain." He grumbled. "I'm sorry, Ken."

Kaneki's face blushed crimson when Uta called him Ken, and the blood poured a little faster. Kaneki wavered, his hand gripping Uta's shoulder sharply. "I think it was one of those high-ranking level quinques." He answered. He hissed through his teeth for a minute before he did something that bothered Uta. "993."

"Stop that. You're going to be just fine." Uta demanded, pulling his lover's arm over his shoulder. "Come on into the bathroom, and get out of this."

"What can I do, Uta?" Kenji asked, standing too.

Uta ground his teeth, looking at Kaneki to calm himself. Kaneki saw the glance and jumped in to assist. "I'll be fine, miss. Uta knows what he's doing, just give us a few minutes alone, please." He answered.

Kenji nodded, but when she motioned to the girls to go downstairs, Uta took her arm by the upper shoulder. "No, don't...don't leave this room. Please." He asked. "Stay right here until I come back, please."

The words he wanted to say he left unspoken, but Kenji seemed to hear them all the same.

 _I can't lose you again._


	3. Chapter 3

Uta tries to go slowly on Kaneki's wounds, tries to be careful and work all of the poison out of the wounds, but by the time he thinks he's done, and Kaneki looks ready to pass out from the pain, there are still three huge chunks in his skin that haven't healed. Kaneki had hit 839 by that point, and it had Uta just as on edge as when he'd first done it in the living room. The smaller ghoul laid his hand on Uta's shoulder.

"Go talk to her. I can handle this." He answered. "We cleared out the threats in the ward. I won't even be gone five minutes. I promise."

Uta stared at the blood and yellowish clear fluid on his hands, the evidence that he'd nearly lost the ghoul he loved as he had his sister all those years before. Uta shook his head, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes. "No, it's alright. These will scar if we don't get them healed now." Uta explained.

"Do you think I don't know that?" Kaneki asked. "I've handled it before. I can do it now. Go talk to your...sister. I didn't even know you had a sister."

A shuffling in the door made Uta turn, automatically defensive of his mate in their own home, but it was just his sister, leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom. "He thought I was gone." Kenji told Kaneki. "I'm not going anywhere, Uta. Take your time with him. I'll still be here."

Uta looked between Kaneki and Kenji, not sure what to do for the first time in his life. Stuck between the two people he loved, he wasn't sure what he'd do with himself if one of them left him now, knowing that she was alive and that he was hurt.

She thumbed toward the living room. "I just sent Furi out to find him something to eat. High level quinques are a bitch to deal with, especially with how busted your fridge seems to be." She smiled gently at him, and Uta felt his eyes prickling uncomfortably.

"Don't worry about me. I can get my own food. I've handled worse injuries than this." Kaneki demanded, turning to Uta with his mask of cool, apathetic stranger on with someone he didn't know or trust in the room. "Talk to her. I'll be fine. You can time me."

Someone opened the mask shop door downstairs, and Uta scrubbed his face. "I forgot to lock the shop door?" He groaned. "How did we make it back in one piece at all?"

Kaneki stood, pulling down the black shirt he wore so that he didn't look at all wounded. "I've got it." He cracked his knuckles, and Uta grabbed his fingers at the violent snapping he heard. "Sorry."

"Whoever it is will leave when they see that no one is there. If they know me, they'll come up here." Uta answered quickly, shaking his head.

"You are being ridiculous, Uta. The immediate threat is gone, and I will heal. I can handle seeing who the hell is downstairs." Kaneki snapped.

"Hey!" Kenji stood straighter off the wall, and Kaneki squared off at her, blocking Uta from her view. "Watch your mouth."

"Watch your step. You saved our ass, and Uta really cares about you. I'd hate to have to hurt you. You don't know me. I doubt you really want to." Kaneki threatened.

Kenji pulled her gloves off and Uta scrambled into her way, standing between them. "Stop! For God's sake, stop! I don't want either of you hurt, and at this rate I'll be cleaning you both up off the floor. Are you out of your minds?" Uta asked. "Go check and see who it is, Kaneki."

Kaneki's kakugan was activated, and he was pressed close to Uta's back, his breath on Uta's shoulder, but after a tense moment and another time calling his name, he nodded and turned away, brushing past Kenji in a clear challenge. One that she, thankfully, didn't take. She watched him walk, then turned back to Uta. "He's got spirit." She grinned. "I didn't mean to scare you, he just struck a nerve for a minute. You're obviously distraught."

Uta sat on the edge of the tub Kaneki had recently perched on. "He knows I am, it's why he's acting this way. He doesn't know you, and no amount of me telling him you can be trusted will make him trust you. He doesn't trust easily after what happened to him." He looked at her. "Kenji, what happened to you? Where did you go? You had to know that I hid out here."

She shook her head. "I couldn't possibly know that Uta. You snuck out at opposite sides of the house than I did, and my girls came to me. I searched for you. I even went back to the house and tried to find your scent. Have you ever been back to that house?" She asked.

Uta glanced up. "I circled it, but I never saw you. I could never even catch wind of you." Uta explained.

She smiled. "I figured you would have. You're smart. Always were." She answered. "I went back to the house, and the father found me there when I was in our side of the house. Despite some fingerprints on the shadow boxes in my room, and my cracked molds, it was perfectly upkept. It was in pristine condition, and he said that he'd hoped we would come back. They had found out what we were, and they still didn't care. They hadn't even told the CCG. He introduced me to his wife and kids, and told me that I could stay there for as long as I needed, so long as I didn't eat his family. Me and my girls stayed there for a long time, hoping you would come back. The girls, Katelyn and Rael are twenty and ten now, and the boy is twenty one. He's got his own family, and they've treated me like such for as long as I can remember. I still visit on holidays. Niki and Kara, the father and mother, treat me like their child, as well as all of my girls."

Uta's owlish eyes were wide. "Humans? Humans did that for you?" He asked.

She nodded. "That's where I stayed for a long time. But Kara came down with something recently, and she wanted to meet my brother, the man I searched day and night for hoping to find. I doubled up, and promised her I wouldn't come back without you." She answered. "We doubled up looking for you. We got lucky coming across you in that alley." Her eyes flared again. "Which, by the way, I would have loved to skewer them all if you and your mate weren't so close to them."

Uta stood up and wrapped his arms around Kenji. He leaned against her shoulder, holding her tight. "I searched for so long trying to find you. I thought you were dead." He said, not able to force more than a whisper out of his mouth due to the choking of his throat by some invisble force. "I couldn't look in the mirror without seeing you there. I changed my hair, got piercings, tattooes, and yet somehow kept seeing you. Then you just show up in the alley, and look just like me."

She laughed, holding him close too. "I knew you would never stop looking for me, and if you did it would be because it hurt too much. We've always been so much alike. Don't worry, Uta. I don't blame you. It's why I changed mine, as well. But I see we still have the same tastes." She leaned back and pulled her shirt down to expose the tattoo, then rolling up her shirt sleeve to show him the sleeves and the belt around her waist of tattooes as well. The same ones as his own. Uta scanned it, then removed his own shirt and jacket to show her his own. The identical matches to the ones on her body.

She chuckled, catching his eyes as she pushed back her overlong bangs out of her eyes. "You're still my big sister." She teased.

Uta rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

Kaneki came back in then, followed by the woman Kenji had identified as Furi. "She found something, wasn't even gone five minutes. And look." He lifted his shirt again to bare where the wound had been, now healed though with a bit of minor scarring. "Healed. I'm all better."

Uta sighed, dry washing his face with his hands. "That's good." He caught Kaneki in a tight hug. "That's very good. I'm sorry I was so out of it. Kenji was just telling me we were still identical, despite modifications." Uta motioned to his tattooes and the ones she left visible without her jacket on.

Kaneki grinned, wrapping his arms around Uta's neck. "No offense to your sister, but I think you wear them better." He told Uta, pressing a kiss to his lips for a moment before brushing his hair out of his eyes. "You look like you're back with us completely now."

Uta nodded. "Definitely." He answered.

Kaneki sighed, then turned back to his sister. "We are all a little tense right now. I'm always on edge. You'll learn that the longer you're here. I'm not good around new people, and there are seven in this building when usually there are only us." He answered. "I was rude, but most days I have to be."

She shook her head. "I understand. Uta already explained that you were just worried about him and hurt. He's just my brother, and I don't know you either." She answered.

Kaneki watched her for a moment, then extended one black nailed hand to her. "My name is Kaneki Ken. I'm Uta's mate." He introduced himself.

She smiled understandingly, extending her hand to him and shaking his as well. There were inherent threats on both sides, but they were the typical threats one ghoul gave another in greeting. Kenji warned that she was strong, and didn't care what she had to do. Kaneki's weren't so simple. 'He may be your brother, but he's mine now, and should anything happen to him when I'm not around, I will hunt you to the ends of this life and the next.' He didn't care what he had to do either.

All in all, a cheerful exchange.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: So, no lie, almost forgot to update this month. I realized at about the eleventh of February that I really hadn't written anything for this month. I'm soooo sorry about that, and I think this chapter actually turned out really well. P.s. Kenji isn't supposed to be a self-insert, in case anyone was curious, she was spawned from an image I saw of fem!Uta right beside Uta, and Uta just kind of had his arm around her shoulder and they had the same shit-eating grin on their faces, and I legitimately went 'what if he had a twin' and Kenji appeared. Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy!**_

Uta stared at the big house in the tenth ward, scanning the building for any signs of change from when he'd been a kid. The building withstood his scrutiny, even under his sunglasses, though the name on the mailbox had changed and the yard was a little less well kept. Kenji stretched her arms above her head and smiled at the place.

"Come on Uta, you act like the place will bite. You and your boyfriend." Kenji said, refrencing Kaneki still standing on the sidewalk a few feet behind Uta just glaring on at the place.

Uta turned to glance at Kaneki rather than the house, extending his hand to his lover. Kaneki looked at him with a much softer look than he'd been giving the house before taking it and moving forward with him. Kenji grinned, pulling Uta's other sleeve to drag him forward, and Kaneki curled his arm securely around Uta's waist. The six others Kaneki had become familiar with over the two or three days it had taken for his leg to grow back, and his walking was still a bit wobbly on two feet. but he'd insisted he was fine even when the others had to help him stand from the couch or Uta had to pull him out of the tub or bed.

Furi was Kenji's second in command. She was quick on her feet, and even faster with her wit, which was rarely displayed unless in defense of Kenji. She made Kaneki comfortable for some reason that Uta couldn't decipher, but when he asked, Kaneki had simply said that she reminded him of someone he used to know. Uta never got more out of him than that.

The one they all called Bug was the youngest, and she acted just like Kenji in all the ways that mattered. She couldn't be any older than twelve, but she was already tall and coming into the beauty Kenji had when she was that age. No one would say where she'd come from, not outright. They all just said she was close to Kenji. Which was true, as every night, Kenji tucked the child in, and brushed her hair. She reminded her about touching things that didn't belong to her even though Uta didn't really mind, and made her eat the parts she didn't ilke. Which, Uta was proud to say he liked about the child, wasn't the eyeballs. She loved them.

If there was an Itori in the whole group, it would be Ara. Ara was quick to crack jokes, and always taking heavy slugs out of a flask that she was quick to hide whenever Bug was in the room. She was always doing some weird acrobatic or contortionist tricks when she wasn't moving, dancing when she wasn't doing that. Any kind of music came on, and she would immediately find a beat in it to dance to. Uta found it entertaining keeping the house quiet when she was around.

The Yomo of the group was definitely Sina, who was thin, tall, blonde, and beautiful, though quiet as a mouse. Uta wasn't entirely sure she had said a single word since her arrival. He certainly hadn't heard one, though Kaneki must have, since he was the one to tell Uta them. He couldn't get a good lock on her, but he could tell she was very protective of both Kenji and Bug. She hovered constantly around the two, and was always providing safeguards for the much shorter Bug.

The weapon freak made Kaneki the most nervous, and Uta didn't even have to know Kaneki all that well to tell. His eyes followed Rose everywhere, especially when she pulled out knives and even more so when she sharpened them. Every time the blade made that slick _shing_ Kaneki tensed, and he couldn't relax until she put the blades away. Uta made sure to corner Kenji about that after the first time, and Kenji had immediately told Rose to put a lid on it.

Maria was sweet, but she was the hardest to get a handle on. Uta would find her snooping in his back room, trashed from a recent incident with a hole in the floor, sniffing and holding bloody bits of wood in her hand that, after inspection, Uta found was Kaneki's. When she wasn't snooping where she wasn't supposed to be, she was sleeping on the floor, for whatever reason, he couldn't fathom. But then she was up and running, playing with Bug and barking like a well-loved pet. She was good at mimicking any sounds, as Kaneki had found out, and took great pleasure in playing with. He had already got her to mimick the sounds Uta made when he was too crazy in his passion, just to get Kenji to pop him upside the head like a naughty puppy because Bug was in the room. He had laughed until Uta had persuaded him politely to stop. Of course, that persuasion had led to a new round of teasing, and Uta found he liked Maria, though he wouldn't say it with her in the room, so willing to mimick his voice to make Kaneki smile.

All in all, the ragtag bunch got along well and actually obeyed her orders much better than the Clowns followed his. Or rather, more immediately. And when Kaneki was healed, they had all been ready to go to this place. The house that started it all, and probably the people who started it all. Uta's descent into anger, and his current predicament, still racing through his blood. Kenji, Kaneki? Both? How could he have two most important people in his world? Did it have to be one or the other, or could he claim them both as the most important people?

Kaneki squeezed Uta's hand. "Stop panicking. You're making me nervous. I thought you said they were nothing to worry about?" He said, though his voice didn't sound nervous. Uta was sure it would drop a few registers once they got inside and met up with the humans. He had donned his eyepatch, after all, though his mask was still dangling out of his back pocket.

Uta nodded. "They are. I'm sure they are." He promised.

Maria sidled up beside them. "Trust me, guys, you'll love them. The grandkids are here today." She pointed to the silver sedan parked in the driveway. "They're inquisitive, big balls of energy, and they're sweet and cuddly. None of them would willingly hurt any of us."

Kenji had already opened the door, and was inside crying out "Lucy, I'm home!" She was greeted by two screams of delight, and little children who were maybe five ran up and jumped into her awaiting arms. "Hey, you little monsters."

"We're not monsters, _you're_ the monster!" The little girl giggled, poking Kenji's nose.

"Oh yeah?" Kenji asked playfully, smiling as she jolted them on her hip while a smiling couple came around the corner.

"Yeah!" The smaller boy cried.

"Oh yeah?" Kenji teased. "Well then I guess I should just eat you up, huh?"

She made silly growling noises like she was an animal and used her lips to pretend she was gnawing on their cheeks and shoulders and whatever else the squirming children let get too close into her range. Uta expected the parents to try to snatch their children away, but instead, they smiled and laughed as Kenji put the kids down to run, giggling happily, back down a hallway that had once led to Uta's room.

Kenji turned to the man, the one Uta could still identify after all these years as the teenage boy who had walked into the house so many years ago. "Hey, Ziri. How are you doing man?" She asked, hugging him tightly.

"Doing good. The kids missed you. I didn't think it would take so long for you to find your brother." He stated, looking behind Kenji to the gaggle of biker chicks that were flooding the house. "Did you? Find him, that is."

Kenji nodded, turning and expecting to find Uta right behind her. Instead, she looked and found him standing with Kaneki, just staring in at the situation. He felt like an intruder. His sister had made a life, made herself happy there, with these humans. He had always wondered what he would do if he found his sister and was able to get her back. How he would react and protect her, keep her safe and healthy. He had set up shop in a dangerous neighborhood and made a name for himself so he could use that name to terrify anyone away from her. But she was independent. She didn't need him. She had safety and security in these people around her. She had a family to love her like his could never, and she didnt need him anymore. Why was he here?

Kaneki squeezed Uta's hand, bringing him out of that sharp and sudden depression he had slumped into. He had a reason to be there, and that was to protect them both, whether they wanted it or not. He would figure out his own crisis in time, like he always did.

"Uta?" She asked.

He nodded, turning to look at Kaneki, who merely nodded, following Uta when he stepped forward to meet them. At Kenji's side, he looked at the man in front of him. He was older, much more angular face rather than the round child's face he was growing out of the last time Uta saw him, and he had a bit of stubble. His hair was longer, tied into a ponytail at the back of his head, and his face was kind and spoke of years of understanding smiles and helping those who needed help. The woman at his side was more plain than anything, but she wore a soft smile that eased all of her features into a semblance of beauty that had long since passed on. In another life, she was probably the epitome of beauty, and Uta could already kind of see it.

"Ziri, this is my big brother, Uta. Uta, this is Ziri and his wife Carla. She's American, so her Japanese is still a little funny sometimes, but she's gotten much better than the first time she got here." Kenji smiled with a mischeivous gleam in her eyes, which seemed to make Carla's eyes get a little bit of panic in them.

"Oh, Kenji, please don't." She begged, but Kenji was already laughing.

"Yes, if you hear the nickname zuchinni get thrown at your sister, that would be why." Rose offered, smiling and patting Carla's shoulder. "Good to see you again, sweetheart."

Carla extended her hand out to Uta, and Uta extended his hand to take hers, taking i and shaking it a bit roughly for a human woman probably, but she expressed no discomfort at it. She didn't even rub her knuckles when she turned to look at Kenji expectantly while Uta shook hands with the boy, who seemed a bit more enthused than his wife to shake his hand. "Kenji, I think you forgot someone?"

She looked back at Kaneki. "It's hard not to. He just kind of follows Uta around like a lost puppy most of the time. Uta takes care of him like a little puppy too, making us put up all the sharp objects while he's around." She smiled when she watched Kaneki stuff his blackened nails into his back pockets, letting go of Uta's hand to do so, shaking her head. "This is Uta's mate, Kaneki. He's a cool guy, as guys go, but a little twitchy at a lot of things. Physical contact from anyone but Uta being one of them."

Kaneki's mouth took on a hard set, and Uta was ready to scowl, but the humans merely nodded. "We understand. Kenji was like that when we first met." Ziri turned to Uta. "It's wonderful to finally meet you. We've heard plenty of stories about you, and more than enough bad jokes to last a lifetime. I hope you don't mind my saying, but your sister has become like another sister to me as well. Your secret's safe with us."

Carla nodded, reaching out to pat Kaneki's shoulder. To his credit, he didn't flinch until she actually laid a hand on his shoulder, but he didn't move away once the hand was there, or try anything to get her to let go. Uta could see the panic just under the surface, mostly in the way his eyes closed. He couldn't ever understand his aversion to women touching him over men at all. Sure, he flinched at men touching him, but he was more likely to panic when a woman touched him, whereas a man could wrap him up in a bear hug and Kaneki wasn't thinking of anything but how to make him let go. A woman touched his cheek, or his shoulder, his back, and Kaneki nearly took their arms off. They'd learned that with Touka when she had patted his shoulder and Kaneki had slammed her into a wall before Uta got a hold of him.

"Carla." Kenji reminded gently. "The physical contact thing?"

She pulled her hand away gently. "I'm sorry. I'm so used to doing that when one of my kids has that look on their face. It was automatic. I'm a mother." She offered, shrugging.

Kaneki forced his eyes back open and made himself smile a little, forgiving smile. "You'll be a great mother for them then." He offered.

Kenji's brow furrowed, and she glanced at Uta for some kind of explanation. Uta didn't give one, merely shook his head. She frowned, but brought everyone inside. While she was making a fuss with the rest of the family, Uta stopped with Kaneki in the entry where he'd found the note. He almost swore if he looked in the waste basket by the door it would still be there, but when he did, there was nothing but umbrellas. "Are you okay?" He asked Kaneki.

Kaneki nodded, bringing his hands around to the front of him so he could crack his knuckles, but when another small child came by, he put them back in his pants pockets. He refrained from cracking his knuckles again, and Uta frowned now. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm okay. Go meet your sister's friends. I'll be right in."

Uta's frown deepened. "Kaneki, if..." The little girl they had seen earlier ran into the living room past them, clutching a familiar piece of black leather in her hands raised high.

"Kenji, you dropped it!" She cried.

That was _not_ Kenji's mask, and Kaneki knew it when he saw it in the girl's hand. He went to dive for the child, but Uta blocked him off. "Kaneki, it's okay. I'll get it back for you, just look at me, okay? She's a little girl. A human girl. Breathe." He whispered quickly.

Kaneki's eyes were fixed over his shoulder until Uta said 'human'. Then they met Uta's eyes, and fluttered to the ground. He nodded. "Sorry. It was automatic. i always have that with me, and she had it in her hand and I panicked. That mask is my whole life, on top of being from you." He went to rub his neck, but looked at his nails and stuffed them back in his pants pocket again. "Just, don't leave me alone here."

Carla came around the corner, looking at the two of them as Uta pulled Kaneki in for a hug and settled his jaw on the top of the other man's head. "Was today a bad day? I'm sure Kenji could have told Kara she'd found you. She didn't have to drag you both here."

Uta let go when Kaneki stepped back at the sound of her voice. He couldn't figure out what was going wrong with the white-haired half-ghoul, but he was going to before the day was out. "No, not at all. We came as soon as we could. He was severely hurt a few days ago, and we're just trying to be easy on the leg." Uta nudged the foot that had been severed the first day Kenji had come back.

She gestured for the two of them to come into the living room and turned to walk back into the room herself. Uta brought Kaneki close to his side and threw his arm around the shorter man's shoulder, walking with him and observing the limp. He was going to need more rest than that, some food soon, to heal the leg that had to completely regrow. It had, certainly, but it needed more time and certainly less strain.

The living room was exactly how Uta remembered it, down to the stain on the floor where his oldest brother died. It must have never come out of the hardwood, because the space clearly seemed to remember it. They had placed their table over it. Uta smiled darkly. "That's amusing."

"What is? The table?" An older woman with a bandana over her lack of hair in a wheelchair asked. Her eyes were soft, and she was smiling. Kenji was kneeling in front of her, squeezing a hand hard. "Kenji burned the wood with a chemical she was using and the kids painted over it. I thought it was a nice touch."

Uta had to assume this was the woman Kenji had called Kara. He shook his head. "The stain you placed it over." He explained. "It has...shall we say, sentimental value to me."

Kara smiled. "We could never identify it. Was it a pet or something?" She asked.

Uta shook his head again. "It's really not something for civilized conversation." He answered, squeezing Kaneki's hand for a moment before reaching out to the table to lift Kaneki's mask off of it. "Here." He handed it to Kaneki.

"I think that was Kenji's." Kara said.

Uta shook his head. "I made it for Kaneki. It's his first mask, and he's never needed another. He dropped it in the front hall." He answered.

"So you're an artist as well." She said, looking at Kenji. "Your brother is much more like you than I thought."

Kenji rubbed her eyes, standing up and placing a smirk on her face, nodding. "Yeah, he is." Uta could see, feel the pain in her body. This woman was slipping away, and Kenji loved her dearly.

"I wouldn't say that." Uta crouched at the woman's legs, extending one hand to her. "I'm Uta, Kenji's older brother."

"Kara. I'm so sorry, for scaring the two of you away. This place was your home, and you can ask Kenji, we haven't touched anything in your home. We left it much the way we found it, and everything is exactly as it was the day you left unless Kenji changed it." She promised.

Uta found himself pleasantly taken aback by this woman. She was calm, and kind, and she was staring death right in the face, with a house full of killers. Kenji had told him that they knew what they were, but he wasn't convinced.

"Do you even know what we are?" He asked, looking at Kenji, and Kaneki, then back to her.

Kara nodded, tapping the side of her eyes. "Your eyes do give it away a little, dear. Scleral tattooing doesn't work on the iris, so you either have an interesting shade of brown eyes, or they are ghoul kakugan." She promised. "Kenji likes to use that tattoo line as well."

Uta smirked. "I'm impressed. I've never met a human who reacted so well to this news." He answered, looking over his shoulder to Kaneki. "Have you?"

Kaneki glanced up, then back down, nodding. "Hide. That CCG raid that came through, he snuck in to find me, and he knew the whole time. He saw the eye, and the kagune, and he just smiled and said it was time to go home." He answered. "He's good at keeping it a secret though. Touka doesn't know he knows yet, and I think she'd kill him if she did know. Kimi. Nishio's girlfriend. He took a chunk out of her, and she was willing to let him eat her. They're still together even. But that's about it. Only other people I've met who knew it were CCG or civilians. Neither of them were too pleased to meet me."

Kara's face grew grim. "That reminds me, Kenji, that man came by again." She told Kenji.

Kenji straightened, arms dropping flathanded to her side. "Which one, the blonde, or the white-haired guy?" She asked.

"Both. Together." Kara told her. "I think he's using them to try to find you."

Uta looked up at Kenji. "Blonde. As in, our father?" He asked.

She dropped her eyes to him. "Wouldn't know. I've never actually seen his face, but he knew my name, and yours, and was really twitchy about that stain. Kept trying to move the table, or so Kara told me." She answered.

"What did the other man look like?" Kaneki asked. "The white haired man?"

Kara blinked. "I'm fairly certain he was a ghoul as well, but not like you all. He was always watching the children, very stoic, a little unsettling to be around. His voice was deep, and he was..." Kaneki flipped open his phone and was already pressing buttons as she spoke, and then his phone was ringing. He kept it on speaker, and then it answered.

"What?" The snappy teenager growled. "I'm a little- shit- little busy here."

"Are you with Tatara?" He asked.

"Yeah. He's less busy. Talk to him why don't you." There was an odd sound, then the sound of Ayato's angry "alright you little bitch, come here", then another voice was on the line.

"Who is this?" He asked.

"Tatara, have you been helping an older blonde ghoul try to hunt down a woman named Kenji?" He asked.

There was a moment of silence, even Ayato was quiet in the background, and then he answered. "Yes." He said.

"Listen to me. Whatever you do, lead that bastard in circles. Do not bring him back to the house where the human family lives, and if you can, drop him completely." He demanded.

"Why?" Ayato snapped. "Why the hell should we listen to you?"

"Because if he finds the people he's looking for, your name, and face, will get put up on every screen I can get Hide to hack, do you understand? He's trying to hunt Uta." Kaneki growled. "Am I clear, or do I need to break the other half of you?"

It was quiet again, and Tatara answered next. "We get it, Kaneki. Consider it done." He responded.

"Good." Kaneki hung up the phone. "I'm sorry about that. That was Tatara."

Uta stood up. "What does Aogiri want with Kenji?" He asked.

"I don't know, I wasn't put on the assignment. I'll be finding out the next time I get that whatever it is, it's probably fighting skill." Kaneki looked at Kenji. "Any particular reason Aogiri Tree would want you, dead or alive?"

Kenji looked to Uta, then back to her hands and up to him. "I'm more of a death machine than my brother, if that's what you're asking." She removed her gloves and showed Kaneki the strange pits in her hands. "I was born with these, and from what I've been told by Uta, I used them at birth to tear a hole into the doctor that caught me six inches wide. I can't discharge them in here, but I can gaurantee that they can blow much larger holes in much stronger objects than bodies."

Kaneki nodded. "That's enough of a reason." He looked at them. "Don't worry. They won't be coming back here. If anything, Tatara and Ayato will start watching the other man even closer than they were you. You're more than safe, ma'am."

Kara smiled. "I have been rude, haven't I? I didn't introduce myself to you." She extended her hand. "I'm Kara, Ziri, Rael and Katelyn's mother. My husband is at work right now, but he should be back soon."

Kaneki looked at her, then extended his hand to shake hers. She saw the scarring on his hand and an expression of pure sadness crossed her face. "Oh, honey, what happened to you? Are you human?" She asked.

Kaneki shook his head. "No." He activated his kakugan for her to see. "You've probably heard about me on the news, but not under my name." He let her examine the scars on his hand, and the ones he hid under fuzzy wrist cuffs that peeked just out under them. "I'm Kaneki."

She glanced up. "You were that missing college student from a few months back." She confirmed.

Kaneki nodded. "They also call me Eyepatch, and Centipede." He answered.

Her eyes widened, then tears came to them. Kaneki went to pull his hand back, but she merely cupped his face with her other hand. It looked frail, and gentle, and for once, Kaneki didn't flinch. He didn't look at her, not until she spoke.

"You poor thing. What did they do to you?" She asked, stroking his cheek under the kakugan eye.

Uta was immediately sure he loved this woman. He decided that he would guard this house with his life if that was what it took, because she meant the world to one of his most important people, and had managed to calm the storm in the other in what seemed like seconds. She was a magical creature, if he'd ever seen one.

 _ **7777777**_

Kenji scanned the bar Uta had brought her to. It was dim, and quiet save for a little bit of music, and a few people were milling about. Uta's Clowns, his mate, some of Aogiri, as Kaneki had explained, and others she didn't know at all. The woman behind the bar, Itori, had confused her for her brother upon entry. Most of them had.

Uta had put together this little gathering to try to introduce her to his closest friends, allies, and playtoys. The Allies seemed to consist of the ghouls that worked at Anteiku. They could go two ways, though, allies and playtoys. He had always had a knack for working people against each other, or turning them into a game. She had heard about the Clowns human auction a while back, and how it had ended in bloodshed on a massive scale. It smelled of Uta, but by the time she'd come to investigate, they were all gone, and so was all trace of the ones that could help her find him. The playtoys were definitely the group known as Aogiri. He was good at working them to his advantage, and made certain to do so every chance he got. He loved the way they each reacted. Which made the friends category few and far between, and some were perplexing, which was just so Uta.

The Clowns were his only friends, and one person who wasn't a Clown. Nico, Itori, Roma, and Kaneki were the only ones in attendance as of yet, but they obviously didn't get along. Kaneki kept a far distance from everyone, for that matter. He watched everyone get close and move away, speaking only to the little Anteiku girl Hinami with any type of calm, and tensing up right away when he was alone. He was especially careful around any women in the room who got to close. Nico was immediately glared at whenever he got too close. __Roma wasn't much better, but she at least had the safety of usually having Nico by her side. Roma and Nico stuck around each other often, and Uta always had his eye on Roma, but they didn't converse frequently, though they clearly wanted to.

Kenji watched them all and could only find a few of them intriguing to watch. Ayato, the angry teenager, and his sister, Touka, were clearly not on the same terms as she and Uta were, even though they had more chances to meet each other and have coffee than Kenji and Uta did. They were angry and bitter toward each other, and from what she heard around the room, that was because of the clear schism of thought processes. The way the twins danced around each other was interesting to watch, though both clearly wanted to protect the other.

The other interesting one to watch was Kaneki. Upon entering the bar with Uta and Kenji, Kaneki had slid off into the other side of the bar and taken a seat in the corner of the bar where he could see every entrance, exit, and person in the bar. And he watched them. Each and every one of them got the same look of suspicion. He watched the women more than the men, but each one when they got too close made him incredibly uncomfortable. He sat straighter, shoulders squared back, and glared directly at the incomer until he walked away. He didn't drink anything unless the kind old man brought it to him or Uta did, and that seemed to be the only one he trusted. Uta. The only one he didn't glare at was Uta, the only one he didn't posture to, the only one he didn't look purely terrified around.

Bug laughed loudly from across the room, and Kenji turned to look at her with a crooked grin. She was sitting with Roma, watching Roma do some silly circus trick on a table, acting very much like a clown to the much younger girl, and grinning hysterically as she balanced three or four glasses on her feet, hands, and nose. Nico clapped and laughed with her, and Uta smirked from across the room.

Kenji's girls were mingling carefully, but each seemed to be slowly easing into it. They all were in comfortable conversation with one person or another, some drinking more heavily than others, or dancing and laughing at others doing so with less talent. It made her smile to see them finally letting loose after the hard years of searching for her brother.

As she thought it, a man sat beside her, long white hair and a blank expression on the handsome face. Itori slid over and passed him some alcohol or another. He didn't say anything at first, but she was okay with that. She was ready to ignore him until he put his drink down and, without even looking at her, spoke.

"Uta's never mentioned you before." He started.

"That's interesting." Kenji answered, voice showing the confusion she felt.

He paused again for a moment, then took another drink. "I didn't know he had a sister, but I've known him for quite a while." He answered.

"You're not one of his Clowns." Kenji stated.

"Nope." He answered.

Kenji sighed. "Okay, I'll pull some teeth. What's your name?" She asked.

He took another sip, then turned to glance to her. "Yomo." He explained.

She smiled, leaning on a hand. "Now the pure talkative vibe I've been getting makes sense. Uta talks about you more than he does me apparently." She answered. "You two tore up this ward together."

There was a bit of silence from Yomo as he took a moment to figure out how to continue the conversation. "It's harder to talk to someone who knows more about you than you thought they did." He said, turning to look away from her again.

Something about it seemed almost bashful, and Kenji grinned, wagging her eyebrows at him. "Uta didn't mention a bashful streak. I'm curious where this is coming from, considering he says you're usually the strong, silent type." She replied, leaning forward.

Yomo made to stand, and Kenji grabbed his sleeve, laughing a little. "Oh, come on. Talk to me. Everyone seems to be avoiding me like the plague. I'm not that scary am I?" She asked, grinning.

He looked her over for a minute, but when he was about to answer, Itori ran up, catching Kenji by the shoulders with an excited gleam in her eyes. "You guy dance?" She crowed excitedly. "You have to show us something! This bar does not get enough people who want to actually have fun. Please? Please please please?"

Kenji raised a brow, looking around at the girls. They all shrugged, and then her eyes caught Uta moving in as if for the kill. "Itori, don't pester her." He said teasingly, though the threat was clear. "Leave her be."

Kenji shook her head, releasing Yomo's sleeve and sighing, glancing to the girls. "What do you guys think? Wolf?" She asked.

The girls all grinned and nodded, shedding jackets and unrolling loose, long pants under their skirts. Some of them tied bandanas around their hair, and Bug tossed one such bandana to Kenji, which she caught and rolled as she spoke to Itori. "You have a sound system in this place?" She asked.

Itori cheered, nodding even as she turned and stuck her tongue out at Uta before jumping over the bar, and Kaneki. He looked increasingly worried, but he didn't get any closer to anyone, instead pressing his back to the wall. When Itori flipped a switch or two behind the bar, the crackle of electricity that went through the place sent him jumping, then she was turning to Kenji to ask what to play next.

Kenji pulled out an old school Mp3, and attached it to Itori's sound system while the girls got into their places. She flipped it to the right song, then moved to get into her place. She looked at Yomo for a moment. "Can I trust you to catch me?" She asked, her tone challenging and her eyes filled with amusement.

Yomo simply nodded, and Kenji grinned before falling into place.

The first few seconds were filled with a traditional type of sound, and with it they swayed to the sound of a wolf howl, and a wind instrument. As the beat started out, each girl stepped out one at a time until Kenji was exposed at the back. The bar slowly stopped speaking and began watching as the people inside started to realize what was taking place. Very few had heard Itori's crow except for Kenji's girls and two or three others, but those that had spread the message, and when the first chorus dropped, and the high energy dance caught everyone's attention, the crew of women had already begun to lose themselves to the music and the dance, as they often did.

They needed money like the rest of the world, and they did it the only way they were comfortable with. They did it together. Kenji sold prosthetic masks where she could, and each of the other girls had their own little pet, even Bug, but together they were stronger at getting the attention of the public, so they performed for anyone who would pay for their services. Some were more sexist and wanted more of a 'show' than a show, others were in it for the art. It didn't matter to them. They loved it, and it paid well.

And they were very good at it.

Kenji knew the song was coming to a close shortly, and there was one last power spot where she would use that jump she needed. It was the last note until the traditional winds came back, and when the girls were in postion, she leapt off the backs of the two that were down in the position they needed. They held fast, and when Kenji leapt, she landed straight in Yomo's arms. She assumed he would be unready, but he was not. If anything, he was as prepared as if he'd practiced with them. Normally, Kenji didn't land in anyone's arms, but she had found an amusing game in trying to make this man turn pink in the cheeks.

Their eyes locked when she landed, and her arm slid around his shoulder to steady herself before she slid down onto her feet and settled back into the music, and her crew. When the traditional sonud quieted again, Itori cheered and leapt for the girls, hugging Kenji tightly around the neck and laughing.

"That was amazing! Oh my god, I wish I'd met you first. It kills me that no one wants to dance in here." She sighed, looking around at everyone before singling out a few people who were bunched together. "I mean, for God's sake, you guys are teenagers. You're in here all the time. And you three, human included, you're college kids." Itori seemed to focus on Kaneki when she started talking about them. "Shouldn't parties be your thing?"

Hideyoshi, the happy go lucky one out of the group of three she was singling out, smiled a mile wide and rubbed the back of his neck. "I used to go to a bunch of them up until the Aogiri raid. My social life has kind of died since a few weeks before that." He answered.

Kaneki took a sip of his coffee. "I was a little tied up at that time too, in case it managed to slip your mind. Nico probably knows more about that if you ask him." He explained.

Itori laughed a little. "Was that a pun?" She asked.

His eyes sharpened on her, but he didn't do anything else. "No. It was pretty literal. Pretty hard to party after that." He explained.

Uta seemed to appear by his side then, and Yomo at Kenji's, which made Kenji grin like an idiot. He was the odd protective type, huh? She could remember that. Wouldn't be hard. As Uta calmed Kaneki, Itori turned her eyes on the relaxed, obvious college kid, Nishio. "What about you, what's your excuse?"

"I've got my schedule pretty full most days. I work." He answered.

Touka snorted. "You fake it, you mean. You clean the same table for fifteen minutes and then take 'breaks'." She whittled at him. She did that alot.

Nishio sneered at her. "Bite me, okay?" He grumbled.

"That can be arranged." She barked back.

"He's taken, sis, calm down." Ayato jeered from the background.

"Shut up, midget!" She whirled on Ayato, glaring him dead on.

He was up, but the tall, quiet white-haired one dropped a hand on his shoulder. Tatara. The one that had been at her house. "What did you just call me?" Ayato snapped.

Itori sighed. "And my point has fallen flat." She turned back to Kenji, grinning and eyes bright. "That was so great, thank you!" She hugged Kenji tight and, though she tensed up, she patted the woman on the back. When she let go, Kenji shook her head and turned to her girls and celebrated another dance where no one rolled an ankle or hit their heads off of each other or the ground. When each girl had finally eased back into pleasant conversation, Kenji went to go back to her place at the bar. She was happy to see that her drinking partner had done the same.

"So, what did you think?" She teased, sipping on whatever drink Itori had dropped in front of her. She personally preferred bloodwine, but the barfly bartender liked to experiment with her liquor and see what others thought, and Kenji had said 'whatever you have', so she was being experimented with.

Yomo settled his drink onto the counter between his thumbs and interlaced fingers. "Very well thought out. You practice it often." He observed.

"We do. We dance professionally, and you can never tell what the next client is going to ask for. We can dance any style you want to see." Kenji explained, leaning on her hand and looking at her own face in the bar mirror. "It's not even much of a challenge anymore. Kind of getting boring."

"Your girls weren't ready for that leap. That wasn't practiced." He accused.

She grinned with a sly curve of her lips. "No, it wasn't. It was a last minute improv." She acknowledged.

His eyes turned to her face, but she didn't give in to looking at him. Not yet. "Why do it then?" He asked.

She grinned still, looking at her nails for a moment. "For one, what we normally do requires more room, and we don't have enough space here." She let her hand drop and turned to look at him dead in the silver eyes. "And two, I was waiting for a chance to jump into your arms."

He barely let the brow twitch, but it was a reaction. "Why do that?" He asked.

Kenji grinned, leaning a little closer to see whether he would back away. He didn't. "That should be pretty obvious by now. You're interesting. And attractive. I could continue listing your attributes that make me want to be around you, but I have a feeling you wouldn't enjoy that." She answered, lifting a brow in question, as if to check what she already knew.

Yomo sat back. "You're just like your brother. He knows and you should too. I'm no plaything." He warned, ready to stand.

"Everyone is a plaything to my brother. Everyone. Has been since we were kids. Any one of them that gets out of line ends up dead, like the oldest brother we have. Had." Kenji answered, rolling her eyes and turning around. "You seemed smart. You should know he plays with everyone. Even Kaneki knows we're all just pawns on his board. If he wants to move any of us out of the way, he will, me included. Get used to the idea."

He paused. She saw it in the mirror. She chuckled, standing up to walk past him. "That's funny. You think I don't know my own place on his radar. It really is entertaining." She teased, grabbing her own jacket from the coat rack and putting it on.

"You really think your brother would use you that way?" Yomo asked.

She laughed again. "I'm a near stranger to him at this point. We haven't seen each other for a while. If we could have never been separated, I might say otherwise. But as of this point, yes. I do." She answered, pulling her hair loose from the back of her jacket.

Itori came over, running to make her stay, but Kenji decided she wanted to go home. Well, Uta's home. She didn't want to let him out of her sight just yet. She had always considered Uta the most important person in her philosophy. That wouldn't change. Uta came to her side when she went to leave, and they all left together, the way she expected it to go, really, and gave Yomo one last glance behind her.

"Nice meeting you Yomo. I really do enjoy your company." She said with an honest smile before shutting the door behind her.

 _ **7777777**_

Yomo watched Kenji leave the bar, and remembered the words. Uta was exactly like her. She was right to say that everyone, including himself, was a plaything to Uta. There were very few exceptions. Kaneki considered himself as still one of them, but he wasn't. Uta wouldn't use Kaneki as a toy again. The man was too important to him anymore. But Kenji...Kenji wasn't a toy either.

It was part of the reason Yomo had gone over to her. He was intrigued from the phone call from Uta saying his presence was requested in the bar to meet his sister. Yomo had known about his family being assholes. But he had never mentioned Kenji. Uta had explained it to Yomo the moment he'd laid eyes on the larger white-haired man stepping into the bar. He had also explained that he was worried about her. He said that the one person he could never read was Kenji, while Yomo had always been good at reading Uta when no one else could. He'd asked for Yomo's opinion on the woman. Upon seeing the woman, he had thought he'd hit his head and was seeing double. She was Uta, but in a woman. She was a few inches shorter, but she had the same build and grace that Uta moved with, the same hair, artistic flair and everything. She only had the addition of ample breasts that she wasn't afraid to use and display.

Mentally, she was a completely different ballpark.

She was insecure about her status in her brother's life, and she didn't talk about herself. She spoke like all she was good for was her body, which showed in the way she analyzed Yomo and then flaunted just her body to him. It clearly mattered to her that Yomo was intelligent enough to hold his own with Uta. She cared way more about others than herself. She thought with a hive mind, and her first priority was others. Namely her brother. She kept up with her art because it was her escape, but Yomo had a feeling if he dug deeper he would find that she was trailing after Uta with that as well, not pursuing her own things.

She was the most attractive being he'd ever met because of those things.

He did something he'd never done before. He wanted her.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: I am sooooooo sorry this took soooo long guys. I didn't mean to abandon it, I got hella busy, and things got crazy. I'm shipping out to join the Army in about two months, and I was caught up in some crazy school shit, but man was I having a bad series of days. Kunai moved out, and I'm all on my lonesom, and personal shit had got me all kinds of fucked up right now, but I realized I hadn't updated when I got a review on an unrelated story the other day and went, "**_ **SHIIIIIIIEEETTT.** _ **" I'M SO SO UNBELIEVABLY SORRY! Please enjoy this chapter, and thank you for being so patient. I have only good reviews so far, and I cannot wait for this to get where it is in my head, and I hope you can stick with me for this. I owe you guys massively, and I promise I will try very hard to deliver next chapter even a little bit of that I owe you going on.**_

Kaneki woke the next morning to humming downstairs. He was surprised he'd gotten any sleep at all, until he looked around the room. He'd come into the shop last night to sleep, daunted by all the sleeping bodies and unwilling to sleep alone in the bed he and Uta shared. Uta had passed out on the couch in the living room, his sister asleep on his lap, and the other girls had piled all around the living room with bed rolls that hardly consisted of blankets and their backpacks as pillows. Bug had been up still when he had wandered out to see when Uta was coming to bed (he wasn't), and Kaneki had told her to take the bed. Once she was settled, Kaneki tip toed past everyone and snuck down the stairs to get to the little couch in the corner of Uta's shop. He curled up there, pulling a cover off of one of the masks to use as a blanket, and fell half asleep with his eyes open. When one of them got up to pee, Kaneki was bolt upright. He'd not slept in several days since the close call with an inspector. He was too keyed up, too strung out, and he needed some form of rest, or he was going to lose it again.

Losing it was common for Kaneki anymore.

But when he opened his eyes on the shop he had fell asleep in, very much alone, he found he was no longer so. He was visited by a humming, female ghoul, dancing to music only she could hear in her headphones, in front of a large hunk of rock she was trying to break open with a crowbar. She danced to whatever was playing and alternately tapped little slats of wood sticking out from the side and leaned carefully on the crowbar. At first, he panicked, because it wasn't Uta, but the cracks eventually gave him something to focus on that his mind had taken to heart as slightly calming. They were the cracks of plaster breaking, and that meant he was free, and safe. Not bones cracking.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes, watching the odd little dance go on for a moment before he got up and wandered closer, into her line of sight. At least, he thought so considering the way she jumped in fright before removing a single headphone.

"Jesus, Kaneki, you scared the bejeezus out of me. When did you come down? I had half an eye on the stairs the whole time," she asked, half-smiling and laughing breathlessly.

"I do that alot. I slept down here last night." He leaned forward to inspect the rock that was clearly not rock when up close to it, but plaster.

She sighed, brushing her hair out of her face where it had fallen from a messy bun. "Yeah, I saw Bug took the bed. Sorry about that. I'll talk to her about that," Kenji promised. She grinned at his blatant curiousity. Well, as blatant as it got for him. "Want to see what it is?"

Kaneki leaned away from it, nodding slightly. "She's okay. I offered it to her. She was still awake and Uta wasn't coming to bed. I wouldn't have been able to sleep up there last night anyway. Too many people," he explained. "What is it? Don't tell Uta this, but I learn pretty well by sight and I kind of want to learn this stuff. He's so busy as it is. He doesn't need me holding him down any further than I already do with that."

Kenji nodded, rubbing the back of her neck. "I feel kind of bad just crashing here. I mean, we have a place to stay, Kara and all, but I don't want to let him out of my sight. I feel like if I do, when I come back, this place will be abandoned, or burned down or something. You feel?"

Kaneki nodded. "I get it." He gestured to the plaster. "What is it?"

She grinned, hopping over the counter to get to another wooden slat. "It's a mold. I make masks too, but I don't make them like my brother does. Mine you wear with glue and such. Prosthetic makeup, if you will. Most of it's single use, but you change faces everytime you put a new one on. What do they call my brother anyway?" She paused her explanation to ask this, looking back up at Kaneki, both headphones off now, blaring loud...French? Maybe. "The doves?"

He looked up for a moment, mind spinning at the sudden whirl before his mind saw the connection. "Depends on which mask. He's got two. One is No Face, the other is just another Clown as far as I know. Never heard any chatter on it," he answered, nodding at the plaster. "So what is this one?"

The grin she gave was unnerving. "You ever hear about this guy, big, mean son of a bitch that liked to go around torturing us, Jason? So named because of the mask he wore," she asked.

Kaneki's face went completely deadened. He went to open his mouth and declare that, yeah, they were acquainted, when another voice, one that instantly soothed Kaneki in ways he couldn't explain, interrupted. "We don't talk about him, Kenji. That man deserved every inch of what he got, and the memories of him makes Kaneki uncomfortable."

When Kaneki glanced over his shoulder at the stairs, Uta was standing there watching Kaneki with careful eyes. He raised a brow and tilted his head just so, casting his face with distinctly concerned features. Kaneki remembered that he wore no shirt and pulled the makeshift blanket around his shoulders and chest. He was scarred when he shouldn't be, and that hurt Kaneki to think about. Uta had loved the soft, tender, fresh skin he'd had before, and the same of his personality before. Kaneki always wondered when Uta would let him go finally.

Uta sighed, rubbing his eyes and coming up behind Kaneki to take hold of the sheet and lean in to Kaneki's ear carefully. "Let go." He waited until Kaneki let go of the sheet reluctantly and then tugged it off of his shoulders. It fell down his back and Uta draped it carefully over the manequin it had been on before he returned and sent his fingers curling over Kaneki's shoulders, then down his arms and to his waist. He twined his fingers together over his abdomen, and settled his chin on Kaneki's shoulder. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Kaneki shrugged. "A little, I think. I don't really know what time it was when I went out, but I know I woke up when Kenji started humming along to her music."

Kenji snapped her fingers as if remembering something, smiling. "Yeah, and your boyfriend is scary quiet, by the way," she told Uta. "He snuck right up on me while I was working."

Uta smiled against Kaneki's skin. "I did know that. He's pretty good at it. But you tend to get pretty blind and deaf when working, if you don't remember my teaching you about that." When she chuckled, he continued. "What are you working on?"

She smiled again, looking to Kaneki and raising a brow as if asking him a question, and after taking a deep breath, Kaneki nodded to her. She looked to her brother with that same gleam she had looked at Kaneki with. "I got a look at the guy once, but you know how my memory is. I was sketching it out one day out of pure boredom, and for some reason, I couldn't get it to look masculine. I was flipping through my sketchbook last night to show you that one piece I told you about, and I saw it in passing. It was there, and it was in my dreams last night, and I woke up hella early thinking about it. So I came down here and got ahold of some plaster and recycled clay from the back room, and started working." She turned back to the plaster rock on the counter. "I was just cracking it apart when Loverboy here woke up and scared the bejeezus out of me. I got it mostly done before I even realized he was there. Usually takes about twelve hours, but I got really lucky and had nothing go wrong."

Uta smiled. "I wasn't sure anyone could make that face look feminine," he answered.

"I never said it looked kind. Just, you know, female now. We know no one could make your face look masculine, but maybe I could try," she teased, looking at him with a critical eye before he lightly pushed her shoulder.

"Shut up and open it, will you?"

She smiled, grabbing her crowbar again. "Get me a mannequin head will you? Female or unisex if you don't have a female one." She turned back and extended the crowbar to Kaneki. "Do me a favor and lean on that side a little, just under the middle pry point if you could, while I tap this side please."

Kaneki took the crowbar and went to the side she had directed. He wasn't sure he should do this, let himself look at that face even made feminine, but he waited until she suggested he lean a little on the crowbar and tapped again. One last loud crack, and the top shifted under Kaneki's hands, which he immediately pulled back. He didn't want to break it or send it flying, and he had trouble feeling things out of his hands or fingers. But she didn't complain, peeling the top layer off gently. She gasped happily, and smiled wide at the small tan piece of material that lay in the bottom cradle of the plaster.

"Haha! It didn't bubble, no nasty edges. All clear. Whoo! I was holding out hope for this one, but I was sure I didn't get the right kind of latex, but it looks great." She peeled it gently from the mold and smiled, grinning like...well, her brother. After a finished mask. Uta came back over and extended her a mask that she took and placed on the slightly tilted platform Uta hardly ever used. She draped the mask over top the face underneath, just a typical face that anyone could have, and checked it over thoroughly again before turning to the two ghouls. "I'd like your opinion on it, if you wouldn't mind." She looked at Uta, but she had the same face he did, and Kaneki could tell she really wanted Kaneki to look at it.

Kaneki didn't look at Uta. Didn't want him to see the panic there. He put his hands in his pockets and moved closer to the face over the mannequin, reminding himself repeatedly that 'it is only a face, not a person, only a face, not a person.' When looking at the face, it was almost too whitewashed to see, especially when Kaneki was used to seeing the face in heavy shadows. He reached up, avoiding the face carefully, and tilted the light towards the top, presenting it in shadows like he was used to seeing it. That was where he learned how good a mask maker Uta's sister really was.

If Jason had a sister, or a mother, female reincarnation, what have you, damned if Kaneki wasn't looking at it. That same face had featured in his nightmares time and again, only with flatter cheeks and a sharper browline. He stared at it for long moments, trying to keep himself from stepping back, away from it. It was inanimate, and he refused to back down. If he saw Yamori walking down the street today, he would attack no holds barred, but this mask made him doubt that. Because staring at it incited as much fear as it had the first day he'd seen Jason.

"It's great." He heard the words choke out of his voice, and he stopped for a minute to look at it again, try to actually give critique that Uta seemed to appreciate. "If you're looking for authenticity when you wear it..." He reached out with a tense hand and pushed the mouth up a little along the face there. "That was his go-to. That... _smirk._ He only ever used three in the room with me, but that was the most normal one. That serene _smirk_ , blank, and when he seemed just as crazy as me." He pushed the smile wider, extending it almost inhumanly, watching the face try to extend to those lengths and stretching delicately. He realized he was about to tear it and for a moment, wanted to reach up with both hands and tear it in two. But he pulled his hand back and curled it into a fist, staring at it. "Welcome back, Jason."

When he did, Kenji reached out to it and lifted it off the mannequin, examining it once before she reached back with a flat hand and pierced it through like Uta had Noro. Kaneki watched with wide eyes, mouth falling open. Her tattooed hand extended through the latex and she jerked her hand down and threw it toward the bin, landing half in, half out. When his eyes moved from the mask to her, she was already going up the stairs.

"It was bad anyway," was the only explanation the two men got.

Kaneki turned to Uta when he heard the taller ghoul chuckle once, smirking at the torn piece of material. He grinned, smiling at the ruined mask now in his hands. He turned and looked up the stairs. "That's my girl."

Kaneki glanced at his hands and realized they were shaking. He clenched them tightly. He was _weak_ , and Uta's sister had seen as much from the first moment. He knew from the first moment that Uta was staggered with having his sister back, and he could see the confusion on his face. He had someone he loved with all his heart, and he wasn't sure who it was. Was it Kaneki, or his sister? His blood, or his chosen?

Kaneki had no doubt he would choose Kenji. He'd guessed when he came back from the torture to Uta that he woudn't stay long. He'd already overstayed the time he'd expected to be sent away from Uta's life. He'd spent way more time and effort on Kaneki than Kaneki had expected him to.

But that didn't mean that he would go without putting on a show. He wouldn't fight Uta's sister, and he wouldn't put himself between the siblings, but he wouldn't make the choice so easy. And he wasn't sure what would happen when they were done, but he was ready for the fight of his life. He would have to get so much stronger, so much better at hiding where he couldn't, and try to make himself get way better way faster.

He crouched down by Uta. "Did she destroy it because of me?"

Uta cocked his head, pursing his lips as he thought. "I think that was part of it, but she wouldn't destroy it were it not for her actually hating it I think. She likes making them, but if she wasn't pleased with it she could have destroyed it for no reason really." He stood, abandoning the thing in the trash completely before extending his hand, reaching out to Kaneki. "Come on. Your leg is still healing, and you need to eat. I've got some food upstairs, unless Kenji's crew woke up in the space of me coming down here."

Kaneki nodded grimly, taking Uta's hand, and they were about to go upstairs if not for a knock on Uta's door. He looked at the clock, shaking his head. "I'm not open for another hour!"

"I know, it's me."

Kaneki's brow furrowed, looking to Uta. "Did you expect Yomo over," he asked.

Uta shook his head. "Nope, but then, I never do expect visitors." He sighed and pulled the door open. "Come on in. What's up?"

Yomo came in and rubbed his neck, trying to crack his neck. "I was just about to go out looking for new stock for Yoshimura, but I wanted to stop and see if you and your sister talked about last night." He looked back up at Uta.

Kaneki didn't call his bluff. He knew Uta knew what Yomo was saying was a lie. Yomo didn't go out for suicides unless it was night out. It was less dangerous and if his bag leaked he wouldn't be spotted. Doves knew what to look for in the daylight, when in night it was harder. But Uta didn't call him on it either.

"No, we haven't. I didn't plan on bringing it up, actually, but I'm curious why you're worried about it." He didn't sound combative, but then, he never did.

Yomo knew he was digging. It was clear on his face. "I was going to sugggest that you don't bring it up. If you bring it up to her, I have a feeling she'll act like he will," he said, nodding at Kaneki. "Lock up and hide it." He glanced at Kaneki. "No offense."

"Good to know I'm predictable," he answered.

Yomo glanced back to Uta, raising a brow. "That's all really. She okay?"

Uta grinned, nodding toward the stairs. "Come on man. We were just about to eat."

"Ah." He slid his jacket off, and Kaneki waited till they were all inside before preparing to close the door. When he leaned out, he saw a head of white hair, and looked back to Uta.

"I'll be right up. Okay?"

Uta turned back, pausing on the stairs. "Are you alright," he asked.

Kaneki nodded, tugging his hair. "Someone I've got to talk to real fast."

"Got it." He understood what Kaneki meant, the mention of white hair all he needed, and he took Yomo upstairs.

Kaneki stepped out into the alley and walked over to Tatara, only a few feet away across the street at an intersection. He must've seen Yomo come in, but Kaneki paused in his approach until he saw Ayato drop from the building above Tatara to drop directly behind Tatara. "You're a little close for comfort," Kaneki mentioned as he approached.

Ayato scoffed. "Shut up, idiot. We came to let you know what was going on with that blonde." He tossed a package at Kaneki, and he caught it with one hand, keeping the other free. "That's everything. We put it down into a file, because with how you are, you'll retain it better that way, but they wanted us to tell you in person anyway."

Kaneki nodded, tucking it under his arm. "So what was going on?"

"He approached me on the street, near the headquarters. He wasn't stupid, and knew we were congregating there. We thought he might be useful, but he wasn't so much useful as the person he was looking for apparently. He described her as young, maybe late twenties, long blonde hair, and holes in her hands. He told us she had an immense power that we could use, a killing machine basically, and he was looking for her. Said she was his kid who ran away, and he wanted to find her before she hurt someone and got herself killed," Tatara explained.

"At first we didn't give a shit, but then he mentioned the beam, the ability to kill from long range without even being seen, and the hole his kid put in a ghoul doctor that put him down, and you can imagine what happened. We wanted her, but our only way to her would be through him. She didn't sound anything like your mask maker, so we didn't put up any red flags, but if she's connected to him, we don't want her involved anymore than we want him involved," Ayato added. "You called and warned us about that, and we called him and told him we had nada." He pointed to that folder. "That is what we had that makes you the only other person who knows that's bullshit."

Kaneki nodded, looking back at it. "Anything I need to know in here?"

"It's got the address of the blonde. His real address. His family is relatively small, so far as we know. Him and his wife, one other person that we couldn't get eyes on. Acts a lot like Uta, if you want my real honest opinion," Tatara told him.

Ayato nodded. "If that's not a relative, I'll eat my own arm."

Kaneki smirked, thinking of Tsukiyama. "Well, we both know that's possible, so let's just hope you're right." He backed into the street, knowing no car would come down this road without being extra cautious. "I'll let you know what I find out."

They nodded, Tatara turning around first, waving over his shoulder. "If it matters, make sure you do," he answered.

When both men were gone, Kaneki checked both ways, scanned the rooftops, and then slid back inside the shop before he locked the door and looked at the file in his hands.

Uta's family, huh?


End file.
